The Search Part 17

Cameron stood with the rest in a daze of discouragement, not taking the trouble to think any more. His head was hot and his chest felt heavy, reminding him of Wainwright's fat knee; and he had an ugly cough.

Suddenly someone--a comrade--touched him on the shoulder.

"Come on in here, Cammie, you're all in. This is the Salvation Army Hut!"

Cameron turned. Salvation Army! It sounded like the bells of heaven. Ah!

It was something he could think back to, that little Salvation Army Hut at camp! It brought the tears into his throat in a great lump. He lurched after his friend, and dropped into the chair where he was pushed, sliding his arms out on the table before him and dropping his head quickly to hide his emotion. He couldn't think what was the matter with him. He seemed to be all giving way.

"He's all in!" he heard the voice of his friend, "I thought maybe you could do something for him. He's a good old sport!"

Then a gentle hand touched his shoulder, lightly, like his mother's hand.

It thrilled him and he lifted his bleared eyes and looked into the face of a kindly gray-haired woman.

She was not a handsome woman, though none of the boys would ever let her be called homely, for they claimed her smile was so glorious that it gave her precedence in beauty to the greatest belle on earth. There was a real mother lovelight in her eyes now when she looked at Cameron, and she held a cup of steaming hot coffee in her hand, real coffee with sugar and cream and a rich aroma that gave life to his sinking soul.

"Here, son, drink this!" she said, holding the cup to his lips.

He opened his lips eagerly and then remembered and drew back:

"No," he said, drawing away, "I forgot, I haven't any money. We're all dead broke!" He tried to pull himself together and look like a man.

But the coffee cup came close to his lips again and the rough motherly hand stole about his shoulders to support him:

"That's all right!" she said in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "You don't need money here, son, you've got home, and I'm your mother to-night. Just drink this and then come in there behind those boxes and lie down on my bed and get a wink of sleep. You'll be yourself again in a little while.

That's it, son! You've hiked a long way. Now forget it and take comfort."

So she soothed him till he surely must be dreaming again, and wondered which was real, or if perhaps he had a fever and hallucinations. He reached a furtive hand and felt of the pine table, and the chair on which he sat to make sure that he was awake, and then he looked into her kind gray eyes and smiled.

She led him into the little improvised room behind the counter and tucked him up on her cot with a big warm blanket.

"That's all right now, son," she whispered, "don't you stir till you feel like it. I'll look after you and your friend will let you know if there is any call for you. Just you rest."

He thanked her with his eyes, too weary to speak a word, and so he dropped into a blessed sleep.

When he awakened slowly to consciousness again there was a smell in the air of more coffee, delicious coffee. He wondered if it was the same cup, and this only another brief phase of his own peculiar state. Perhaps he had not been asleep at all, but had only closed his eyes and opened them again. But no, it was night, and there were candles lit beyond the barricade of boxes. He could see their flicker through the cracks, and shadows were falling here and there grotesquely on the bit of canvas that formed another wall. There was some other odor on the air, too. He sniffed delightedly like a little child, something sweet and alluring, reminding one of the days when mother took the gingerbread and pies out of the oven. No--doughnuts, that was it! Doughnuts! Not doughnuts just behind the trenches! How could that be?

He stirred and raised up on one elbow to look about him.

There were two other cots in the room, arranged neatly with folded blankets. A box in between held a few simple toilet articles, a tin basin and a bucket of water. He eyed them greedily. When had he had a good wash. What luxury!

He dropped back on the cot and all at once became aware that there were strange sounds in the air above the building in which he lay, strange and deep, yet regular and with a certain booming monotony as if they had been going on a long time, and he had been too preoccupied to take notice of them. A queer frenzy seized his heart. This, then, was the sound of battle in the distance! He was here at the front at last! And that was the sound of enemy sh.e.l.ls! How strange it seemed! How it gripped the soul with the audacity of it all! How terrible, and yet how exciting to be here at last! And yet he had an unready feeling. Something was still undone to prepare him for this ordeal. It was his subconscious self that was crying out for G.o.d. His material self had sensed the doughnuts that were frying so near to him, and he looked up eagerly to welcome whoever was coming tiptoing in to see if he was awake, with a nice hot plate of them for him to eat!

He swung to a sitting posture, and received them and the cup of hot chocolate that accompanied them with eagerness, like a little child whose mother had promised them if he would be good. Strange how easy and natural it was to fall into the ways of this gracious household. Would one call it that? It seemed so like a home!

While he was eating, his buddy slipped in smiling excitedly:

"Great news, Cammie! We've got a new captain! And, oh boy! He's a peach!

He sat on our louie first off! You oughtta have seen poor old Wainwright's face when he shut him up at the headquarters. Boy, you'd a croaked! It was rich!"

Cameron finished the last precious bite of his third hot doughnut with a gulp of joy:

"What's become of Wurtz?" he asked anxiously.

"Canned, I guess," hazarded the private. "I did hear they took him to a sanitarium, nervous breakdown, they said. I'll tell the world he'd have had one for fair if he'd stayed with this outfit much longer. I only wish they'd have taken his little pet along with him. This is no place for little Harold and he'll find it out now he's got a real captain.

Good-night! How d'you 'spose he ever got his commission, anyway? Well, how are you, old top? Feelin' better? I knew they'd fix you up here.

They're reg'ler guys! Well, I guess we better hit the hay. Come on, I'll show you where your billet is. I looked out for a place with a good water-tight roof. What d'ye think of the orchestra Jerry is playing out there on the front? Some noise, eh, what? Say, this little old hut is some good place to tie up to, eh, pard! I've seen 'em before, that's how I knew."

During the days that followed Cameron spent most of his leisure time in the Salvation Army Hut.

He did not hover around the victrola as he would probably have done several months before, nor yet often join his voice in the ragtime song that was almost continuous at the piano, regardless of nearby sh.e.l.ls, and usually accompanied by another tune on the victrola. He did not hover around the cooks and seek to make himself needful to them there, placing himself at the seat of supplies and handy when he was hungry--as did many. He sat at one of the far tables, often writing letters or reading his little book, or more often looking off into s.p.a.ce, seeing those last days at camp, and the faces of his mother and Ruth.

There was more than one reason why he spent much of his time here. The hut was not frequented much by officers, although they did come sometimes, and were always welcomed, but never deferred to. Wainwright would not be likely to be about and it was always a relief to feel free from the presence of his enemy. But gradually a third reason came to play a prominent part in bringing him here, and that was the atmosphere. He somehow felt as if he were among real people who were living life earnestly, as if the present were not all there was.

There came a day when they were to move on up to the actual front.

Cameron wrote letters, such as he had not dared to write before, for he had found out that these women could get them to his people in case anything should happen to him, and so he left a little letter for Ruth and one for his mother, and asked the woman with the gray eyes to get them back home somehow.

There was not much of moment in the letters. Even thus he dared not speak his heart for the iron of Wainwright's poison had entered into his soul.

He had begun to think that perhaps, in spite of all her friendliness, Ruth really belonged to another world, not his world. Yet just her friendliness meant much to him in his great straight of loneliness. He would take that much of her, at least, even if it could never be more. He would leave a last word for her. If behind his written words there was breaking heart and tender love, she would never dream it. If his soul was really taking another farewell of her, what harm, since he said no sad word. Yet it did him good to write these letters and feel a reasonable a.s.surance that they would sometime reach their destination.

There was a meeting held that night in the hut. He had never happened to attend one before, although he had heard the boys say they enjoyed them.

One of his comrades asked him to stay, and a quick glance told him the fellow needed him, had chosen him for moral support.

So Cameron sat in a shadowy corner of the crowded room, and listened to the singing, wild and strong, and with no hint of coming battle in its full rolling lilt. He noted with satisfaction how the "Long, Long Trail,"

and "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" gradually gave place to "Tell Mother I'll Be There," and "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,"

growing strong and full and solemn in the grand old melody of "Abide With Me." There were fellows there who but a few hours before had been shooting c.r.a.p, whose lips had been loud with cheerful curses. Now they sat and sang with all their hearts, the heartiest of the lot. It was a curious psychological study to watch them. Some of them were just as keen now on the religious side of their natures as they had been with their sport or their curses. Theirs were primitive natures, easily wrought upon by the atmosphere of the moment, easily impressed by the solemnity of the hour, nearer, perhaps, to stopping to think about G.o.d and eternity than ever before in their lives. But there were also others here, thoughtful fellows who were strong and brave, who had done their duty and borne their hards.h.i.+ps with the best, yet whose faces now were solemn with earnestness, to whom this meeting meant a last sacrament before they pa.s.sed to meet their test. Cameron felt his heart in perfect sympathy with the gathering, and when the singing stopped for a few minutes and the clear voice of a young girl began to pray, he bowed his head with a smart of tears in his eyes. She was a girl who had just arrived that day, and she reminded him of Ruth. She had pansy-blue eyes and long gold ripples in her abundant hair. It soothed him like a gentle hand on his heart to hear her speak those words of prayer to G.o.d, praying for them all as if they were her own brothers, praying as if she understood just how they felt this night before they went on their way. She was so young and gently cared for, this girl with her plain soldier's uniform, and her fearlessness, praying as composedly out there under fire as if she trusted perfectly that her heavenly Father had control of everything and would do the best for them all. What a wonderful girl! Or, no--was it perhaps a wonderful trust? Stay, was it not perhaps a wonderful heavenly Father? And she had found Him? Perhaps she could tell him the way and how he had missed it in his search!

With this thought in his mind he lingered as the most of the rest pa.s.sed out, and turning he noticed that the man who had come with him lingered also, and edged up to the front where the la.s.sie stood talking with a group of men.

Then one of the group spoke up boldly:

"Say, Cap," he addressed her almost reverently, as if he had called her some queenly name instead of captain, "say, Cap, I want to ask you a question. Some of those fellows that preached to us have been telling us that if we go over there, and don't come back it'll be all right with us, just because we died fighting for liberty. But we don't believe that dope. Why--d'ye mean to tell me, Cap, that if a fellow has been rotten all his life he gets saved just because he happened to get shot in a battle? Why some of us didn't even come over here to fight because we wanted to; we had to, we were drafted. Do you mean to tell me that makes it all right over here? I can't see that at all. And we want to know the truth. You dope it out for us, Cap."

The young captain la.s.sie slowly shook her head:

"No, just dying doesn't save you, son." There was a note of tenderness in that "son" as those Salvation Army la.s.sies spoke it, that put them infinitely above the common young girl, as if some angelic touch had set them apart for their holy ministry. It was as if G.o.d were using their lips and eyes and spirits to speak to these, his children, in their trying hour.

"You see, it's this way. Everybody has sinned, and the penalty of sin is death. You all know that?"

Her eyes searched their faces, and appealed to the truth hidden in the depths of their souls. They nodded, those boys who were going out soon to face death. They were willing to tell her that they acknowledged their sins. They did not mind if they said it before each other. They meant it now. Yes, they were sinners and it was because they knew they were that they wanted to know what chances they stood in the other world.

"But G.o.d loved us all so much that He wanted to make a way for us to escape the punishment," went on the sweet steady voice, seeming to bring the very love of the Father down into their midst with its forceful, convincing tone. "And so He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to take our place and die on the Cross in our stead. Whoever is willing to accept His atonement may be saved. And it's all up to us whether we will take it or not. It isn't anything we can do or be. It is just taking Jesus as our Saviour, believing in Him, and taking Him at His word."

Cameron lingered and knelt with the rest when she prayed again for them, and in his own heart he echoed the prayer of acceptance that others were putting up. As he went out into the black night, and later, on the silent march through the dark, he was turning it over in his mind. It seemed to him the simplest, the most sensible explanation of the plan of Salvation he had ever heard. He wondered if the minister at home knew all this and had meant it when he tried to explain. But no, that minister had not tried to explain, he had told him he would grow into it, and here he was perhaps almost at the end and he had not grown into it yet. That young girl to-night had said it took only an instant to settle the whole thing, and she looked as if her soul was resting on it. Why could he not get peace? Why could he not find G.o.d?

Then out of the dark and into his thoughts came a curse and a sneer and a curt rebuke from Wainwright, and all his holy and beautiful thoughts fled! He longed to lunge out of the dark and spring upon that fat, flabby lieutenant, and throttle him. So, in bitterness of spirit he marched out to face the foe.